Under the Cover of Ice
by WriterEl
Summary: Mac and Jack are sent on a mission to Greenland's Sermersooq Ice sheet to repair the Satellite Communications System for a mysterious research facility. Due to numerous red flags during the initial assignment review, Mattie has the two agents doing some investigation of their own. Something dangerous lies beneath the ice, something that could cast the world into a nuclear crisis.
1. Chapter 1

Hello Folks (again)- I had so much fun writing the last story that I decided to try my hand at something a bit lengthier. I basically roughed out an episode length story line, but be forewarned...this is going to take me some time.

Again, with all the dialogue I get bogged down a little, so let me know if I lose anyone in all the banter to the point where people don't really know what's going on. I can always do some re-writes to clear up any word piles that I might inadvertently dump onto readers.

As always I appreciate feedback, both critical and/or motivational.

Cheers- El

* * *

 **Under The Cover of Ice**

* * *

:: The Team- War Room ::

Mac looked at his partner as they nearly raced down the hallways of the Foundation. Mac thought it bizarre how, as they slid around each corner, there seemed to be some by-standard carrying an overly large stack of loose papers that they managed to narrowly miss every time.

"Jack I told you not to take Sepulvida Boulevard, but you just had to get your Java Juice."

The older man shot back, "Hey, I didn't know 'Her Highness' would blow her dog whistle right as I pulled into stopped traffic. Come on man. Cut me a little slack. You would have thanked me later if we had actually made it to Java."

A little breathless Mac made it abundantly clear that that would never have happened. "Jack there is no way you will ever get me to drink kale through a straw. You are SO delusional sometimes."

They rounded the last corner and slowed to a jog as the door to the War Room came into view.

Mattie was going to kill them. They were so late.

As Jack opened the door for them to enter, Mac managed to catch the edge of his boot against the door frame and stumble as he made his first few steps into the room.

Mattie greeted the two agents with a death stare that would make Clint Eastwood proud.

"So glad you two decided to come in to work today. What the hell took you so long?"

She immediately held up a hand. "You know what, don't answer that. Just sit down and try not to look like two chickens caught in four way traffic."

He and Jack fumbled around each other awkwardly trying to take their seats before Mattie could go into a full blown tongue-lashing about what it meant to be 'on-call'.

Once everyone was settled down Mattie addressed the room. "Now that we are all here, we can finally start going about doing our jobs."

Despite her diminutive size, the director of operations for the Phoenix foundation could intimidate a full grown tiger into flopping belly-up to act as her personal fireplace rug. Mac took note that she was particularly riled up this morning- more so than what he and his partner's tardiness would typically warrant.

Something was up.

The fiery director walked around the room passing out file folders earmarked with various categorical tabs and then returned to her position at the front of the room.

"What I just handed you are exact duplicates of a dossier for an assignment offer sent to me by the assistant to the Secretary of Energy earlier this morning. Take a look while I give you a summary."

She turned to the large screen at the front of the room and tapped in a few codes that accessed the encrypted files associated with the project. Continuing to face the screen she began to lay out all the details.

"The Strategic Environmental Assessment and Control Office, otherwise known as SEAC, reached out to our agency following a loss of communication at 0100 hours with a civilian staffed science station they were backing in a remote location on the Sermersuaq Ice sheet."

Without even looking behind her she added "Jack…that means Greenland."

Jack rolled his head towards Mac sitting catty-corner across from his own leather chair and gave a nonplussed 'seriously' look over the rims of his aviator glasses.

"The station itself was mobilized three weeks ago to investigate a recent flare-up in a rather baffling radiation footprint that US government satellites have been monitoring since the initial discovery July of last year."

She tapped another key on the screen and a low resolution satellite image of what looked to be a crescent shaped crevasse fracturing across a field of ice appeared. Mac was a little taken aback at how out of place the deep gash appeared against the pure white landscape of the ice.

"The radiation spike appears to correlate with the sudden emergence of this 1500 x 600 meter depression as shown by these primitive satellite photos. The SEAC analysts determined the crevasse to be a natural fracture due to movement in the ice. But, and I quote, as 'a precaution', they decided to go ahead and initiate a plan to set up an ice coring program and a series of field based monitoring stations in order to investigate the duel radiation + collapse phenomenon. Geologists, glaciologists, and nuclear engineers from both Berkley and Cal-Tech were recruited via the DOE's Nuclear Energy program to be part of the investigative team. Individual dossiers for the personnel currently manning the station are included in the back of your individual folders."

Again Mattie tapped the screen and another image replaced the last. This one showed what looked to be an aerial view of Greenland's eastern coast. A long swath of land was curiously obscured by a hazy smear, like a massive white dust storm.

"According to the head of the SEAC operations, a recent bout of bad weather known as a Piteraq is responsible for knocking out the station's field antenna that was their sole means of broadcasting to their Satellite Comms System. As Piteraqs are very sudden and very destructive with over 250 km/hr winds, SEAC has concerns that more than just the antenna may be damaged. Because of this, they request that we send in a team capable of not only getting the communications system back up, but also of trouble shooting any other equipment damage we might find. They gave us until noon to accept or decline the contract."

Mattie turned from the screen and looked like she was about to commit murder.

Something was definitely up thought Mac.

The director spoke, "Someone tell me why I am so pissed right now."

The small statured woman stood there with her arms crossed and the agents looked at one another perplexed. After a few uncomfortable moments of silence, Mattie finally spoke again, "All these highly trained agents in one room, and NO ONE has an answer for me?"

"Jack!" she snapped, "You go first."

The older agent looked like a deer in the headlights. "Uh….what?" He looked to Mac for some sort of rescue, but the genius just shrugged his shoulders glad he wasn't the one on the hot seat. Jack's look of pleading turned to a scowl as he realized his best friend was leaving him for dead.

Turning back to Mattie with the look of a man resigned to high diving into a snake pit, he confessed. "Boss, you called on the wrong kid in class. I just punch bad guys in the face when you tell me to, remember?"

"Cut the crap," Mattie barked, "what is wrong with the picture that I'm painting you here Dalton?"

Mac looked at the Ex-Delta and the image of a tiger going belly-up flashed into his mind.

Jack cleared his throat. "Well, ok then. I guess the first thing is…never in my life have I ever seen a project dossier from a government agency as skin-and-bones as this thing."

He held up his copy of the files in the air for emphasis.

"Nothing is outright redacted in any of the documents, but if you pay attention to the content there is barely any information relayed at all in here. If this were a complete background report on a DOE project, there would be at least 300 pages of just bureaucratic red tape, probably in triplicate, and my arm would be about ready to fall off just trying to lift this thing."

He looked around the room at his team.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say they were trying to give the appearance of being transparent, but actually shoveling skeletons into their closets as fast as they can before the guests arrive."

Mattie let out a dramatic sigh, "Thank god Dalton, I was beginning to think we had gotten your resume for a valet position mixed up in our pile of secret agent applications."

Jack visibly puffed up in relief. He then cocked his head back and winked at the team behind him- all except for Mac, whom he reserved another scowl.

Mattie cut his preening short. "Save it for when you actually impress me Jack. Riley, you're next."

It was now Riley's turn to look a little flustered as she ran her fingers across her keyboard.

"Well the Piteraq story checks out, but there are some red flags that I'm getting on the digital images they provided. I mean, the latitude of the Arctic Circle isn't a hot bed for terrorist surveillance activity, but come on. I'd hope the DOE had better imaging capabilities than what they gave us and…wait..."

Her fingers continued to dance across the keys like lighting.

"Yeah….it looks like someone has messed with the digital time stamps. A halfway decent cover job."

She then added a little sarcastically, "…if you were trying to fool the high school principal. These pictures are far from up-to-date. It looks like they were taken over 3 months ago, not 3 weeks ago."

She looked back up at Mattie. "I'd have to agree with Jack that something fishy is going on. They are definitely trying to hide something."

Mac was intrigued. He too had had a nagging feeling that something wasn't quite right. Deciding to preemptively add his thoughts to the conversation before his boss could set her sights on him, he spoke up, "Mattie, can you pull up the image showing the section of collapsed ice again?"

Mattie did as requested. Mac stood up from his chair and moved toward the screen to get a better look at the grainy picture.

"Something's not right about this fracture pattern to the ice. Ice sheets and glaciers follow the same laws of fluid dynamics as the lakes and rivers that we are more accustomed to seeing. Ice will flow from highs to lows due to gravity and because of this you create the same ripples and waves that you would see with any normal body of water. What you would expect with the topographic configuration of the rock and ice shown in this image would be laminar flow to the ice here in the center…"

He used his hands to mimic the flow of a river down the center of the icy valley.

"…whereas along the sides nearest these fins of rock, the ice would transition into a much more friction induced, and thus slower, turbulent flow. It's a behavior really driven by a simple equation called the Reynold's…"

Mac slowly trailed off mid-sentence as he became aware that the entire team had developed a glass-eyed expression. All except for Jack who was just staring at the ceiling slowly shaking his head.

Mattie snapped her fingers to get Mac's attention and blinked heavily for emphasis. "Mac. How about you try that again."

The blond look back to his teammates.

"Yeah. Sorry guys. So basically, if any cracks are forming at this particular location, they should be A. forming in sets and B. aligning parallel to the channel of ice. Not perpendicular like we see in the actual image. If this crevasse is natural, it isn't due to any movement of ice."

Mattie nodded and, back in her 'angry boss' mode, threw her file folder down onto the table in the center of the room. She had heard enough and felt like her point was made.

"So, now that you guys are all FINALLY clued in, I can just lay everything out in the open."

"What we have here folks is a fellow US government agency A. working under a GUISE of academic interest B. on foreign soil and is C. CLEARLY fumbling up an issue directly related to national security. I don't know how the DOE normally handles their sub-departments, but I'll be damned if Phoenix stands by and accepts this smoke and mirrors nonsense concerning an ambiguous radiation source. It's reckless in the extreme. Additionally, I don't like it when other agencies wantonly endanger my agents by withholding crucial information."

Everyone exchanged glances again as the full weight of Mattie's tirade sank in.

Jack leaned forward and pulled his yellow aviators down just enough to make direct eye contact with his boss. "Damn Mattie, now I'm pissed. So, what's the plan boss?"

Finally fed-up with Jack's aviator antics, Mattie lowered her voice and in the most intimidating soft tone she could muster purred, "Jack, take those ridiculous glasses off of your face before I do something with them you are not going to like."

Mac and Riley both struggled to hold back tears of laughter, afraid of bringing the wrath of their boss down upon their own heads. Mac actually had to cover his eyes and feign a couple of coughs to try to get himself back in control. Jack just paled a little and quietly replied, "Yes Ma'am."

A nice, warm tiger fireplace rug.

Mattie returned her focus to the topic at hand.

"SEAC is covering something up and I want to know what and why. In order to do this, we are going to give the appearance of accepting the proposed contract with the condition that we operate with complete autonomy throughout the entire operation. We'll let them know that we will be taking care of everything on our end. That will give us the latitude we need to launch our own investigation. Hopefully they'll take the bait."

Mac now fully focused again knotted up his eyebrows and thought for a moment. "I'm assuming that they didn't provide us with any imagery of the radiation footprint?"

Mattie's voice dripped with contempt. "Apparently the SEAC deemed that data to be too peripheral to the assignment to warrant being included." She looked with intensity at the young agent. "Mac, is there any way that what we are looking at here is an unsanctioned nuclear testing scenario?"

Mac looked back at the satellite image of the depression and shook his head. "No, even a small detonation test would generate the same spherical distribution of force as seen in the initial experiments at the Nevada Test Site. The collapse would be circular. But, to be sure, I'd have to be on the ground."

Mattie turned to Riley, "When is the earliest we can generate our own gamma photos of the science station?"

Riley hovered over her screen, "Looks like I can get tapped into the NASA Gamma Network or the Low Earth Orbit Military Network."

Mac spoke up, "NASA wouldn't work as those satellites are pretty far out of earth's atmosphere and we would have to contend with too much interference from solar radiation. Could you passively access the military system without showing our hand?"

"Yeah." Riley then looked up at Mattie, "That would give us our first images 6 hours and 20 minutes from now."

Mattie launched into full director mode and began barking a steady stream of orders.

"Do it and while you wait, keep digging into the rest of the dossier provided by SEAC. I want a list compiled of any other data discontinuities you find. Get Lisa from analytics to help."

"Bozer, you work on travel and logistics with the guys in the basement. I want a solid cover constructed for Mac and Jack within 24 hours. Due to the remoteness of the target facility, you and Riley will be staying here in LA with me so you have sufficient resources, but we have to make sure Blondie and Top Gun here have everything they need for the field."

Mattie then looked at both Jack and Mac. "You two are going to be the ground team. You'll have another set of agents to act as communications support based in a faux hunting camp we'll get set up 300 miles north of the city of Tasiilaq. When it comes down to the surveillance though, you'll be travelling inland alone to the science station. I'll be able to keep you under the radar for 24 hours before we'll have to resume our cover story of trouble shooting technicians. At that point, we'll have to send you back in through the front door so-to-speak."

"Is everyone clear on what we are doing here?"

Jack, having already forgotten his frustration with Mac earlier in the meeting, looked at his best friend with a huge grin on his face. Leaning over excitedly towards his partner, he held his fist out and boomed, "Hell's yeah! We're goin' to the North Pole brother!"

With enthusiasm equal to (if not exceeding) Jack's, the young genius reciprocated the fist bump and was about to say something when Mattie cut him off.

"Hey Abbot and Costello! We could very well be on a mission to prevent an international nuclear event. Could you two PLEASE act as if the fate of the world might be resting in your hands."

* * *

Hopefully that sets the stage well enough for an arctic adventure. To be continued...

Thanks!


	2. Chapter 2

Sorry for the delay in getting Chapter 2 written up. I went into a coma after all the holiday turkey and just now snapped out of it.

* * *

:: MacGyver - En Route to Target Station::

Mac looked down in awe at the icy desert that stretched out for hundreds of miles below him in all directions. The contrast of jagged nunataks and arêtes of two billion year-old rock rising in defiance of the unimaginably slow, but unstoppable grinding force of the ice sheet was both poetic and humbling. It wasn't every day that he was put on assignment in such a beautiful place as Greenland, so he was using every high vantage point that he came across to not only get a lay of the land, but also to simply admire the landscape before him. If not for the periodic click of the gamma-ray detector slung low across his chest, it would be easy for Mac to forget that he was even on an assignment at the moment.

He shielded his eyes with his gloved hand and tried to pick out details of the terrain before him.

Hiking into the heart of the Watkins Range had always been on Mac's bucket list since he was a boy. At the age of nine, he grew into a phase where he devoured any and every book concerning the 'Great Age of Arctic Exploration' and other such heroic expeditions that he could get his hands on. By that point, his mother had already been gone for four years and his father seemed to be taking on jobs that would keep him away for weeks to sometimes even months at a time. In the vacuum left behind during those absences, Mac was left casting a net far and wide to fill his boyhood need for role models. So, he found himself traveling across the globe into vast unknowns with the likes of Shackleton, Fawcett, Hillary, Rasmussen, Peary, Cook, and of course Watkins- the list was inexhaustible. Every new book and Captain's journal brought him closer to one of the great men of history.

His grandfather, part time guardian to Mac, understood this need and let the boy act out his own explorations behind the family's homestead nestled in the old pineries of the Minnesota backcountry. In the dead of winter Mac would tell his grandfather that he was going out trekking through the wilderness to 'acclimate his body' and 'hone the survival skills' that he would need to one day re-discover the North Pole, or drive a dog sled team to rescue sailors stranded in sea ice, etc. Always the aspiring adventurer, those were some of the best days of his childhood.

Now sitting at the top of the world at the age of 26, Mac let the nostalgia warm him from the inside out. Whereas most people would be thrown into a state of disquiet, almost panic when faced with such an open expanse of desolation, it put Mac at ease. There was no good or evil out here in this cold remoteness, things just were. To survive in such places, it took a combination of diligence and pure and simple luck. Somehow that appealed to Mac even as a child.

He checked his watch. It was a little before 9:00 am. The mission's progress thus far had been excellent since his and Jack's arrival to Greenland a mere 14 hours ago. Despite the gravity of the overall mission, Mac found that the trip itself had been quite pleasant.

The last leg of their transit to the hunting camp that would act as a pretext for their under-cover activities had been completed by a large, but fast forty-five meter beam trawler. The name boldly painted across the white hull of the sturdy vessel was the Aiviq Kigun, hailing from the remote village of Ittoqqortoormiit. Jack had slept most of the way down the coast, but Mac had decided that he could fortify his own energy stores with a constant consumption of strong black coffee. Still enamored with the arctic scenery, he hadn't wanted to miss a single thing that passed outside the large Plexiglas windows of the bridge en route to their destination.

The Kigun's captain, a large burly man that was the epitome of what one would imagine a grizzled Nordic seaman to be, had been quite pleased to have Mac as company above deck and maintained a steady stream of conversation with the American spanning a wide variety of topics such as the counter weight balance system required for the outriggers, what to spot as harbingers of bad weather in arctic climates, the habits of cold water fish species and their migration patterns, etc. It had been one of the most engaging conversations Mac had had in a long time. The feeling, it appeared, was mutual. The captain had never before had a passenger with such a genuine interest in both the ship and the livelihood of its crew, and so the old sailor chatted with great zeal the entire length of their journey.

It was almost with regret on Mac's part that the vessel finally reached his and Jack's target GPS location for transferring to shore. But, as Mattie had so frequently reminded the agents during every satellite update since their departure from LA, possible nuclear foul-play was at stake. Time spent conversing with locals was thus time they might not actually have.

With the director's warnings hanging heavy on their minds, the two agents had bid hasty farewells to the Aiviq Kigun and were able to load their gear onto a smaller zodiac and set into the water in under twenty minutes.

Everything that happened after pushing off from the Kigun occurred in quick succession like a well oiled machine.

Despite it being close to midnight, the clear sky and full moon had cast sufficient light for Jack to navigate the rubber boat with ease away from the trawler and into the mouth of a glacier fed river that, according to the map, would lead them to the hunting encampment. It didn't take long motoring upstream before two shadows dressed in camouflaged arctic jumpsuits had come into view along the river bank. Jack had run the zodiac aground and the two figures introduced themselves as Franklin and Kesler, the two ancillary agents assigned by Mattie to manage all Phoenix communications as well as uphold the group's cover as a hunting expedition while Mac and Jack did their 'double agent' work. Both comms operators were as eager as the new arrivals to get the second stage of the mission going, so no time was lost getting the latter settled into one of the larger yurts in the tent village.

As inviting and warm as all the round structures appeared to be on the outside, the true purpose of the yurt assembly was to provide adequate housing for the massive amount of equipment needed to sustain a secure connection between the surveillance team and the head office (aka Mattie). Mac was always amazed at how much effort it took to keep the network node of their sophisticated comms system under wraps. The equipment's heat and electromagnetic signature alone could be seen from space if the proper precautions weren't taken. Because of this, little room was actually left in the yurts for the activities of the agents themselves. After Mac and Jack had changed into clothes more suitable for winter surveillance, the four men found themselves huddled over the only table available in one of the cramped tents as Franklin laid out the most recent of Riley's newly acquired satellite images of the science station.

Photos of both the research facility as well as the mysterious crevasse did not appear to be much different from those provided by the DOE, which was unexpected and further begged the question of why SEAC felt the need to tamper with the date stamp in the first place. Other than giving a false impression of when the facility was actually established, the lie didn't seem to accomplish anything. Yet another mystery that caught Mac's eye, were the updated gamma photographs. Although it was blatantly obvious that the spike in the radiation signature was indeed correlated with the kilometer plus long collapse in the ice, what was disconcerting were the vague tendrils of radiation streaming down slope within the ice its self. This lower grade radiation signature, no doubt what drew SEAC's attention initially, appeared as long wisps bleeding away from the source point of the collapse. It looked as if several dollops of ink had been dripped into slow moving water and allowed to spread down every eddy and riffle as it migrated downstream. Natural or not, Mac hadn't a clue as to the radiation's source nor its observed distribution pattern. A brief feeling of unease had passed through Mac at the time, but he forced himself to turn his attention towards reviewing the remainder of the updated documents provided by Riley rather than brooding over the unknown.

After an additional 20 minutes of reassembling new field packs, Jack and Mac had bid yet another quick farewell and mounted a pair of snow mobiles to set off towards the target science station, or what Jack had started to ominously call 'Ground Zero'. Mattie had made it abundantly clear that this second stage of the mission was to perform passive reconnaissance of the SEAC facility and see if the agents could determine what had gone on over the last three months leading up to the recent loss of communication with the outside world. Additionally, they were to look for any potential danger that might befall on them tomorrow when they made their official arrival at the station as Phoenix satellite technicians.

Mac had to hand it to his boss, she could put forth a direct and no nonsense demeanor, but she knew exactly how a less than direct mind worked. She recognized head games when faced with one and could pirouette around every misdirection and duck under every underhanded play. Very few people could blind side his boss and this entire mission was a testament to her ability to be two steps ahead of the other team's chess piece. If this communications repair contract was bogus in any way, she would be sure to find out before she put any of her people in harm's way. She had quite a protective streak in her that wasn't always easy to see from under all the cynical criticism she heaped on her employees.

Despite still having some reservations in a few areas of their personal relationship, Mac knew he could trust Mattie completely when it came to a mission.

The actual journey out to the SEAC facility from the Phoenix camp required a 20 km navigation across snowy hillocks, ice cliffs, and rock pinnacles that continued to grow in breadth and scale as Mac and Jack had pushed further west into the heart of the Watkins Range. The going had been quite slow in the pre-dawn hours of morning, but as soon as the long, late summer sun had crested the horizon, the two agents were able to set a faster pace whilst still avoiding any of the usual hazards associated with ascending onto the world's second largest ice sheet. They had made it to within 9 km of the station before having to abandon the snow machines and precede on foot.

That was where travel had gotten a bit tougher.

A ptarmigan flushed from behind a nearby outcrop bringing Mac out of his examination of the morning's events and back into his present surroundings of the ridge top.

The young agent took a deep breath of fresh air and then turned his attention to his watch yet again. It was about time for a check-in with Dalton. He found an outcropping of rock that blocked his position from any potential onlookers from the target station to the north and laid down his backpack. Despite still being 6 clicks away, a careless reflection off of a pair of field glasses, rations tin, or in this case an aluminum map case, could easily give his presence away. It wasn't yet known whether there were hostiles at the science station, but always better to be safe than sorry, he thought.

As he sat down, Mac flipped open the case's cover and looked down at the topographic map in order to mentally calculate how much time it would take for him to traverse the remainder of his ridge line. It looked like he had about an hour before he would have to start a slow decent to a lower elevation, wherein the real surveillance work would begin.

He looked over at the adjacent fin of rock that jutted out across the valley of ice paralleling his own.

Judging by the difficulty of the terrain on the other side, Mac estimated that Jack should be roughly due east of Mac's current position. With everything from their down jackets, backpacks, and even their socks being white, it had been nearly impossible for the younger man to track his partner against the snowy landscape.

Jack should be looking for the younger man's signal about now.

Unfortunately, both he and his partner had passed into the designated zone of radio silence about two hours ago, so the two agents were having to resort to using Morse code mirror signaling to keep each other apprised of the other's progress.

A sudden thought occurred to Mac that perhaps the radio silence was a good thing. It was probably saving his ears from a constant assault of bad jokes with a dash of incessant whining that Jack would otherwise be broadcasting across all frequencies if possible.

After dismounting and concealing the snowmobiles at the base of the valley roughly 2 km back, the agents had decided that two different surveillance angles would be necessary for getting the best coverage of the research facility. After a somewhat lengthy series of coin tosses that evolved from a simple heads or tails into a best 2 of 3, and then into to best 3 out of 4, Jack finally admitted defeat and set off along the less than favorable route hugging the eastern border of the glacial valley while Mac took a more elevated position along the ridge bounding the western border.

Jack's 'low road' across the opposite fin of rock was by far the much more difficult traverse and, to add insult to injury, right now the older agent should be working through the most strenuous stretch.

Mac pulled out a compass from his hip case and braced it against the side of his ski goggles with the mirror facing outwards. With a broad sweep, he tried to cast a beam of light across where he projected his partner to be. After a few seconds, he saw a return flash and honed in on the Texan's exact position. Before Mac could even get his first word in, Jack launched into his own version of what he considered to be a professional field operations update.

Jack: (Yeti ambush / Call Han / Bring light saber)

Mac didn't know if he should cringe or laugh. He appreciated the fact that Jack had probably been cooking up that reference all morning, so to appease his friend, Mac decided to go ahead and run with the Star Wars theme.

Mac: (Han busy / Sends regards) break (ETA?)

Jack: (Figures) break (2 Hrs. to Survey Point 1)

Mac couldn't help but rub it in the Ex-delta's face that the younger agent would reach his surveillance point first.

Mac: (Will wait for your obs. report)

There was a pause on Jack's side. Mac could just imagine his friend cursing up a storm. He was definitely glad they were under radio silence. Finally Jack signaled back.

Jack: (You suck) break (Enjoy the cold wait)

Mac continued to smile. Although Jack tried his damnedest to maintain a grouchy façade, the younger man knew that deep down inside, his friend was reveling in this assignment just as much as he was. Both men enjoyed pushing themselves physically and it was nice to finally be working as a pair out from under the scrutinizing eyes of the entire Phoenix War Room. Not that Mac minded having Mattie 'gently' guiding their progress through their usual missions (more like cracking a bullwhip laced in flames at them), but getting to run around in the field with his partner off-leash for a day was almost like being on vacation.

Mac ended the conversation with: (You bet / Best of luck with Hoth yeti)

He chuckled to himself. What he really bet was that Jack was going to go home after this mission and think long and hard about all those times the older man gave Mac grief when trying to explain probability and statistics. More specifically, probability and statistics as applied to coin tosses. One day Jack would actually start appreciating all of Mac's impromptu lectures and finally win a coin toss or two in the future.

Mac put his gear away and shouldered his pack shifting his gaze back to the north. So far, nothing looked to be out of the ordinary during their approach to 'Ground Zero'.

Mac was well aware that appearances could be deceiving though.

As if on cue, not ten steps down the ridge, the gamma detector suddenly began to click at a much faster rate.

Mac mentally kicked himself for jinxing his progress and stopped immediately to look at the scintillometer's display screen. He unhooked the strap attached to the detector and swung the instrument from side to side trying to locate the source of the radiation.

He then realized the source was directly under his feet. 'This,' thought Mac, 'is very curious indeed'.


	3. Chapter 3

Hey Folks-

A little slow trying to lay out the scene of what Mac and Jack are walking into so-to-speak. Also trying to build up the mystery without getting too convoluted, but I may be tottering on the edge of being boring. Don't worry, action should start once the two agents join back together.

* * *

 **::Jack- Nearing the Science Station::**

Jack swung his ice ax above his head for what felt like the thousandth time. It had been a little under two hours since his last check in with Mac, but past and present seemed to have telescoped down into this ground hog moment of ice wall after ice wall.

He was so tired of ice walls.

Nothing had really been too grueling or too vertical, but still, every time the terrain got jagged enough to warrant using the sharp tool to haul himself up a steep incline, it delayed the Ex-Delta by another 10 minutes, then another, and another.

He was going to be late and probably a little sore. Maybe he was getting too old for this.

Jack let out a big huff as he hoisted himself over the crest of the latest ice/snow obstacle. His breath had been building fine layers of ice around the slits of his white balaclava for the last 10 minutes, so he scraped his gloved hands across the cloth to shake some the larger chunks loose.

He felt like a snow cone and probably looked like one too.

Jack hated this place.

For some reason his partner was obsessed with this god forsaken snow globe, which was quickly becoming a complete mystery to the older man. The kid obviously had some crossed wires in that noggin of his.

For Jack, the excitement had fizzled right out shortly after the first ice waterfall, or glacier cube, or whatever you call a frozen obstacle that had blocked his progress during the first hour of his hike to his designated surveillance point.

He was going to give his young friend an earful about how to do a proper coin toss. Minus 10 degrees Celsius or not, gloves need to be stripped off in order to get sufficient air on a quarter. Next time they were going to play rock paper scissors to determine who got the princess route vs. the traverse from hell.

The North Pole was so overrated.

Jack stood up, re-holstered his ice ax, and scanned his surroundings. As he scrutinized the landscape, his eyes landed on a dark patch amid what was almost a pure white backdrop. Although he could barely make out the outline of the structure, he had no doubt that that was the science station.

He was close. Even better, there was nothing but rolling snow hummocks between it and his current position.

'Finally' he thought as he let out a sigh of relief, 'no more ice ax'. He glanced at his watch and immediately his mood shifted from sour to ecstatic.

Resisting the urge to whoop and holler across the winter wonderland that stretched before him, he instead beat his chest with both gloved hands and let out a guttural growl.

'Jack,' he thought, 'you are a snow leopard man…a white tiger… a sasquatch of the north born to navigate the arctic with stealth. You are ahead…of…..schedule!'

He loved this place.

After a quick double check of his gear to make sure he had maintained a 'white out' appearance, he pulled out a pair of specially shielded binoculars that prevented glare and more importantly reflection. He wanted to assess the condition of the station ASAP and make a tally of how many scientists might be roaming about the grounds doing their…..well…..science stuff.

He would surprise Mac with a surveillance update ahead of schedule and the young agent could eat crow about ETA's and such.

Bringing the main structure of the station into focus, Jack knotted his brow in concentration. He then froze. As his mind processed what he was seeing, he could feel his body making all the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. A chill suddenly ran down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

Shifting the dial of his binoculars to focus on other parts of the camp only caused him further alarm and the excitement he had felt only moment ago fully evaporated.

Shock and disbelief started to settle in at the base of Jack's skull.

"What the Hell," escaped his lips before he knew he was even saying it.

Damn he hated this place.

* * *

 **::Mac- At Surveillance Point West::**

Everything about this was wrong.

In his vast experience with both the army and several intelligence agencies, operations that started with bad intel always went to hell six ways from Sunday fast. The well-oiled machine that had been this Sermersuaq mission only an hour ago was quickly blowing itself apart.

Mac closed his eyes and rubbed the back of his neck as best as his thickly gloved hands could manage. All his muscles had tensed up since he had first laid eyes on the science station.

"What a disaster", Mac mused under his breath.

No matter how hard he pressed the heel of his palm into neck and shoulder, he just couldn't work out the fastly developing kinks. He pretty much felt like a walrus with all his padded arctic gear on, but there was nothing he could do about it.

After picking up his specialized binoculars for what felt to be the 100th time in the last 30 minutes, the young agent scanned the SEAC camp again for any signs of life.

Once again, nothing.

Yet another bad sign to add to the ever growing list of bad signs.

Upon his arrival to 'Ground Zero' about an hour ago, Mac had immediately gone on high alert. What he was observing at the station, combined with his confusion concerning what he found back on top of the ridge, left his brain spinning in overdrive. His mind kept working through scenario after scenario trying piece together all the facts he had collected into a coherent narrative. So far nothing was making sense.

The most recent jigsaw piece that didn't fit was the science station itself.

What was supposed to be a quote '3 week old' makeshift ice coring camp was actually a fully established winter compound. That alone was a problem, but what made his chest tight and all the muscles of his shoulders tense was the fact that the compound looked like an absolute war zone. After recovering from his initial shock, he soon reasoned out why none of Riley's satellite images had shown the full extent of the field camps facilities now laid out before him.

Aside from the main building that did appear in all the sat photos, there were also smaller secondary structures capped by bizarrely sloped white shells half hidden by snow drifts. The effect of the strange domed architecture was to make the buildings nearly invisible on the ground and probably damn near impossible to see from any sort of aerial view. Mac couldn't tell from his current position, but some of the structures might actually be inset into the ice itself. In addition to the actual buildings, there were row after row of squat looking rectangles at the far end of the property, again capped by those gently sloping protective shells. All of the camp structures curiously appeared to be facing inward towards a central point like spokes on a wheel.

Mac guessed that the domes not only acted as camouflage, but also blocked any heat signatures and who knew what else. This setup was much more advanced than what the Phoenix camp was equipped with, and very much more expensive.

SEAC had outdone themselves setting this place up, but why?

The second red flag for Mac was the damage. This had been a bit more difficult to discern due to the snow that had collected in and around most of the site creating a clean blanket of icy white. No doubt ice crystals scoured from further north and blown into the camp like sand during the Piteraq nearly 36 hours ago. At least the meteorological part of the DOE's story was proving to be true.

The most obvious of the camp's equipment problems was a large satellite dish that lay mangled in a twisted heap half hidden beneath a hill of snow that was in the process of swallowing up the wreckage. There were also two snow cats that looked as if they had been tossed by a gigantic toddler through the camp center causing additional damage to one of the larger buildings. A few of the domes covering the squat rectangle containers along the periphery of the compound had also caved in, but managed to stay in place only because they had filled in with even more snow.

What agitated Mac were the subtle things. The shallow crater that had remained clear of snow in the center of camp. The black shadows that licked the sides of at least two buildings indicating that fire had broken out at some point. The jagged hole that had peeled back the metal of one of the snow cat's passenger side cabs. None of this had been caused by the natural forces of a Piteraq. In fact most of this looked very much like a tactical assault, but it was hard be sure from this distance.

He needed to get closer.

As far as he was concerned, this was no longer a passive surveillance job and it was time to improvise. In order to do so, he needed Jack on-board, which meant he had to sit tight and wait for his partner to arrive.

"Nothing like having time on your hands to indulge in obsessing over the motives of secretive governmental agencies and attacks on their radioactive camps" Mac lamented aloud to no one in particular.

* * *

...


	4. Chapter 4

**::Jack- At his designated surveillance point::**

Well, this sucked.

All of that hard work to get into a good position for some long, relaxing surveillance and for what? A big steaming pile of nothing.

With hands on hips, Jack tilted his head back and let out a groan of resignation for what he was about to do. The hollow complaint dissipated quickly in the cold air.

Jack knew his partner, and after witnessing upon his arrival the onslaught that had befallen the research facility, there was no way Mac was going to stick to the original plan of passive surveillance. Mattie's 'observe and report only' was a no go, and by now Mac had probably already worked out a back-of-the-envelope alternative plan. An alternative which, if experience was any indicator, would involve disregarding all directives put forth by their VERY scary boss.

Jack would, of course, follow Mac to the ends of the earth, thus making him an accomplice.

'Thank god we aren't outfitted with active comm sets,' thought Jack, 'or Mattie would reach right through the earpieces and throttle the both of us for what I'm sure you are scheming up Bud.'

There was in fact no doubt in Jack's mind that Mr. Antsy Pants was already brainstorming a way to get into that compound to sniff around as soon as humanly possible, which meant that Jack needed to hoof it over to boy genius's position immediately before Mac got the itch to try to go it alone.

Jack was constantly harping on his friend about his nasty habit of running headlong into danger. The younger man would defend his actions by calling it risk taking mitigated by good sense. Jack called it 'risk taking that gave Jack an ever growing collection of grey hairs.' Not only was it was the Ex-Delta's official job to make sure no mercenary fleabags got their grubby little hands on Phoenix's prized bloodhound, but it was his own personal mission to keep the young man unharmed physically and mentally. At times, Mac could make accomplishing both tasks very difficult.

Jack didn't want this to be one of those times.

He needed to get moving.

Feeling very under prepared, Jack grumbled,"I should have brought more bullets," as he embarked on yet another long slog- this time towards his partner's location.

He was sure he was going to have visions of Mattie choking him out haunting him every step of the way.

* * *

 **::Mac- At his designated surveillance point::**

"Come on Jack, where are you buddy?"

They needed to reconvene immediately as plans had changed, but so far Mac hadn't seen any signs of his partner to the east. He should already be in position by now.

Mac was starting to feel a little guilty that he hadn't just volunteered for the tougher route. There must have been more obstacles than had appeared in the Landsat photos. He'd make it up to Dalton by quietly suffering through another Die Hard marathon when they got back to LA. If Mac were being honest with himself, it was actually worth seeing his friend re-enact pretty much the whole 10 hours across Mac's living room floor. Even if it did result in some broken lamps.

He let his binoculars fall to his chest and he rubbed his eyes. His vision was starting to feel a little strained.

The ominous lack of activity in the compound was weighing heavy on his mind and left him restless. It was like watching a graveyard. Times like these had a tendency to set his mind spiraling into 'worse-case scenario' mode.

'What if people were hurt, or trapped somewhere? What if mercenaries really did over-run the camp and a hostage situation was in progress? What if even worse bad guys were on their way? God forbid, what if Mac had missed some clue concerning the radiation and the entire compound was quickly turning into a 'Hot Zone'?'

He needed to be in there. He needed to feel as if he was doing something constructive rather than just sitting around.

Suddenly he could hear Texas twang in his head telling him to 'Hit the breaks kid. You are sooooo overthinkin' things right now. Don't you dare do anything stupid, you hear?'

Mac's lips curled into an involuntary smirk. The fact that Dalton's voice had somehow wormed it's way into Mac's thoughts over the years (and actually gave good advice) was probably a sign that they spent way too much time together.

"Always the voice of reason", whispered Mac to himself.

In an effort to settle down and relax, the young agent decided to work back through his latest hypothesis concerning how A. the radiation signature he had found on the ridge connected to B. everything he was observing here at 'Ground Zero'.

The snow bank in front of him provided cover from the direction of the station and the cliff behind him provided protection from anyone circling around his position, so he felt it was O.K. to relax his attention enough to let his thoughts wonder. Sometimes loose mental associations led to revelations that he otherwise wouldn't have worked out by any sort of formal means of reasoning.

And so, he switched into his inner thought processing mode.

First, he needed to understand the radiation source he had inadvertently stumbled across back at the ridge line.

After his gamma-ray detector had alerted him to something 'hot' on top of the ridge, he was able to use the piece of equipment to zero in on what looked to be large white veins that cut through the otherwise drab grey rock that had lain beneath his feet. The grey rock was pretty ubiquitous and it composed most of the mountains here in the Watkins Range, but the veins were something new. As Mac had swept the scintillometer across the rock, he found that it wasn't even really the veins themselves that were interesting, but what was hosted within.

The metal box had whined as he hovered it directly over a patch of charcoal black, sooty looking material. The radiation signal was a weak one, but it was there.

He could only make an educated guess that the dark patches were something called pitchblende, otherwise known in the scientific community as the naturally occurring radioactive mineral uraninite. During WWII, uraninite was a highly sought after commodity by the defense department for obvious nuclear weapon reasons. There had been a few subsequent periods of heightened exploration during the late 60's and 70's when civilian demand for nuclear power had been a fad, but uranium had largely faded away as a major mining product after 1982. There were only a few private companies that still mined the radioactive material. The key phrase here being private companies, NOT government agencies.

He had never actually seen the raw uraninite in person, but recognized it from his EOD training as well as during his introduction into the intelligence community. Unsanctioned marketing and distribution of raw uranium ore was strictly forbidden under the International Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons Treaty, thus government policing of the nuclear materials trade was taken very seriously.

Despite not being able to make a nuclear bomb with pitchblend directly, all agents and analysts working on foreign soil were expected to be able to identify all stages of the refinement process that could transform the radioactive mineral into weapons grade uranium. This included recognizing the raw ore itself, which was exactly what Mac had found in its natural setting on the mountainside.

'Ok', Mac reasoned, 'So I found veins containing uraninite, but in such low concentrations as to not have any real value. The fact that SEAC was investigating a much larger source of radiation at the science station might be indicative of a considerably higher grade concentration of uraninite. Perhaps enough to be economically feasible to mine as a true uranium deposit. Uranium causes radiation - radiation causes heat - a lot of radiation causes a lot of heat and….'

"Of course!" Mac exclaimed under his breath. "The gamma ray photos of the strange crevasse!"

He resisted the urge to face plant his forehead into the snow mound in front of him and instead pinched the bridge of his nose in a grimace, mentally chastised himself. 'I totally should have seen it back at the Phoenix camp' he thought. 'Using gamma ray satellite photos and evidence of the recent collapse, SEAC miraculously found a high grade uranium deposit sitting beneath Greenland's ice sheet'.

His brain must be getting slow from playing too much Skiball with Jack on the weekends.

The good news was that he had solved the mystery concerning the radiation source. The bad news was, that solution led to more questions. The most important being, why was the US government secretly involved in this particular uranium deposit? Why spend so much time and effort chasing uranium ore down beneath thousands of feet of ice, when there were at least half a dozen more accessible mines elsewhere in the world? What made this deposit so unique that the US government would break at least half a dozen international laws to safeguard it if that was even what they were actually doing here?

Mac once again felt himself getting frustrated from the lack of answers. 'Come on Jack, you are killing me.'

* * *

 **:: Jack- On his was to find Mac::**

Trying to maintain his cover, the older agent had been carefully working his way along a low swale towards where he would hunker down if he were Mac. He still didn't have eyes on the kid, but at least heading west was taking him in the right direction.

Putting one foot in front of the other at a pace he liked to call his 'high tailing it' speed, he was covering quite a bit of ground. That was until he suddenly found himself face down scrambling to keep his pack from fully tipping him over.

Regaining his balance, he glanced down to see what had stopped his progress. Somehow he had stumbled upon and broken through a fresh mound of snow. Not only that, but his boot felt like it was caught. Curious, he slowly backed out of the depression and bent down on one knee to inspect. As he peered into the hole, he could just make out a dark object buried a few feet beneath the surface. After a few additional seconds spent digging through the loose snow, his gloves finally brushed against something bulky and hard.

He sat back on his heels and let out a soft whistle. One might say, he had brushed against something stiff.

'Damn' he thought. It was a boot not too dissimilar from his own.

It took a few minutes of clearing away the rest of the icy blanket before Jack managed to fully uncover an armed guard dressed in full combat uniform. 'This was no science geek ogling ice core', Jack thought, 'this was a highly trained mercenary of unknown affiliation...and...he was frozen solid.'

This did not bode well for what was sure to be Mac's impromptu party crashing idea.

Jack paused and looked at the desolate landscape around him and then back at the guard. "Who the hell are you and what were you doing way out here dude?"

A quick pat down for any clues as to why an unmarked member of some task force was lurking around what was supposedly a civilian run research facility resulted in only two items. A magnetic key card and a booklet containing the standard military satellite communications systems codes. The codes were something Jack had long ago memorized having been in the Army himself, but the magnetic key card might be something Mac would find useful.

He pocketed both items and, as an extra measure of security, un-holstered the dead man's side arm to add to his own arsenal.

The older agent stood up again and re-shouldered his pack, dusting the snow from his thick trousers as he did so.

'Mac' he thought, 'I hope you have more answers than I do, 'cause this is one big ass riddle wrapped in an enigma, tied up with a pretty little bow of mystery.'

He then set off again, hoping it was in the general direction of where his partner was whipping up solutions.

* * *

Hi Folks-

Let me know if anyone is confused concerning what Mac figured out about the radiation source SEAC was monitoring. This chapter took about a billion re-writes, so my understanding of what I wrote might have morphed into something totally disjointed and confusing. There will certainly be more clarification once Mac and Jack meet back up and discuss their next move. Thanks for reading!

-El


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